Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Making the most of the good weather

So apparently the heatwave is gone. But was it ever here ? I keep reading about how warm and sunny it was over the last couple of weeks, but come on, it was around 22 degrees most of the days. Surely we can't call that a heatwave, even for Irish standards! 

I have to admit, one day last week was a lot warmer than the others and I thought I was going to collapse with the heat. It was at least 27 or 28 degrees, and without air conditioning in the office or in the car, you can imagine how uncomfortable I felt (and by that I mean sweating like a pig of course).

 But hey, we're not going to complain, are we?  We took advantage of the nice weather to do a lot of outdoor activities. 

One of the days I went to the beach with the kids. This made me realise how Irish people go a bit mad when the sun comes out. When I say mad, I mean careless, especially with sun protection. There were definitely a lot of burnt people around...

On Saturday, we went to the Family fun day at Ciaran's school. There were bouncy castles for the kids and that's where we ended up spending most of the time. Try to get a child down a bouncy castle. Impossible task. 

I have to say, I felt a bit like a fish out of water. I don't drop or collect Ciaran at school, so I don't really know anybody. And when I don't know people, I'm not the most talkative person of all. I noticed a few French parents but didn't engage in a conversation. Maybe I'm weird, but I don't feel the need  to meet other French people. I was never interested in joining the "Alliance Francaise" or meet-up with French. I came to Ireland to speak English, discover a new culture  and try to integrate in a new country.  Anyway, maybe those parents felt exactly the same as me because they didn't talk to us either. 

On Sunday, there was the National Sand Sculpture competition on the local beach. We could have entered as it's opened to anyone. Except I'm useless at building sandcastles. I never overcame the trauma I experienced as a child, when I was forced to participate in a sandcastle competition during summer camp. That's when I realised I had zero creativity when it comes to building things (or basically all visual arts that require the use of my hands). 

So I was happy enough admiring the beautiful works of art on display. Some of them were just amazing and my favourite ended up being the winner. The kids tried to built a few sandcastles; well, Ciaran was building and Ethan was destroying. Fabrice attempted to build something as well but I don't think he's ready for next year competition yet!

Winner of the competition with "There's no point crying over spilled Ice-cream"

Fabrice's masterpiece
Hope you all made the most of the good weather, as now the rain is starting again! So to finish off, here's a picture I found on Facebook that represents Irish summer perfectly:


Enjoy summer everyone !!